Cold Cold

Cold Cold Canada is really living up to it's name this week. As I glance at the weather it's currently -15 C in Windsor, -27 in Orillia (where I will be later this week).

Living here in the far southern reaches of Canada seems to have thinned my blood a little. There was a time when -15 wouldn't have bothered me that much. Now I consider it really rather cold.

Only a couple of years ago I was much tougher.

That year I went on a January business trip to Timmins, Ontario. (Home of Shania Twain, which they seem extremely proud of)

For those of you unfamiliar with Northern Ontario, Timmins is here:


Note that I currently live just across the border from Detroit, and Orillia is just a little north of Toronto. So far as Ontario is concerned, Timmins is pretty far north.

I was traveling with three coworkers who were raised a little further south than I was. I'd wander about Timmins, coat unzipped, laughing at the silly southerners who'd sprint from car to building, and then shiver for half an hour.

And, of course, going a little further back, those of you playing the home game my remember that a little over a decade ago (wow, I'm old), I was a ski instructor. I pushed small children around in the snow in -30 C weather and would sometimes declare "I am a ski instructor! I do not GET cold!"

That was then, this is now. I am no longer a ski instructor and -27?

Cold